


In Time of Daffodils

by Tammany



Series: Easter Daffodils [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Gen, MILD - Freeform, Quiet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:05:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2428064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is longer, more complicated, and involves a bit more juggling of ideas and working through of problems than the other two. It is therefore a bit LESS meditative and a bit less tied to nature. But I tried to keep it still well and clearly linked, and with the same underlying aesthetic. </p><p>Hope it works for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Time of Daffodils

**Author's Note:**

> The title is drawn from an ee cummings poem. The words fit. 
> 
> http://www.electronicpoems.com/in-time-of-daffodils/
> 
> It is also something of a mood match with Chanticleer's production of a musical setting of the same poem.
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PriMS_xGXmg

Mycroft and Lestrade had returned from their walk just as Sherlock had come to a brain-dead stop in front of the hall window on his way back from the loo. The sun, he’d noted, was too bright. He’d stood, blinking, and thought “Yellow,” contemplating the bold glow in Mycroft’s arms.

Lestrade had opened the gate for Sherlock’s older brother. He had noted that, brows furrowing, too wrapped in the comforting fog of a sleep-in morning at Mummy and Father’s to process it with any speed or acuity. Lestrade had opened the gate, his face very still, and Mycroft had crossed into the garden with a faint diplomatic nod of his head, not meeting the other man’s eyes. Their bodies had been alive—poised, like actors making their entrance onto a stage, quivering with self-awareness and the rocketing energy of life.

It was good, Sherlock thought in a contented mental mumble. Good. Yes. Walks—Mycroft and Lestrade had gone on a walk. As friends do. A walk.

He’d smirked. His brother had brought back daffodils from the little dell he so desperately wanted to believe he’d kept a secret from Sherlock—as though Sherlock would ever have permitted his older brother any secrets at all if he could help it!

Yellow. Yellow daffodils.

Mycroft had looked up, met Sherlock’s eyes—and smiled. Sherlock had felt the strangeness of it—Mycroft smiling, alive, his arms full of shining gold flowers, Lestrade at his elbow—but darting ahead to catch the front door, too.

Again he considered it. They’d been walking. As friends do. They’d come back with daffodils. Mike and his budgie, Lestrade.

He’d smiled back…

…and then done just as he’d intended all along, going back to bed, burrowing deep into the old wool blankets and worn goose-feather duvet, letting the household carry on without him.

When he woke the sun shone in, blazing brilliant splashes on the old oriental carpeting and turning the light dotted-swiss curtains into a radiant glory over the windows. There was a thrush singing somewhere, a rolling, twittering, busy song full of cheeri-ups and cheree-cheree-cheree. The house was filled with the biting scent of daffodils, as though Mycroft had brought the whole dell in with him.

“Sherlock!”

Mummy’s voice. Or, no—Mary’s. He confused them sometimes.

“Sherlock—Coooo-eee! Wakey-wakey, sleepy head! Lunchtime!”

He rolled over, moaned, and ran long fingers through his tangle of hair. “Wha’….?”

“Lunch soon, you great clot,” she said, her voice coming closer. His door opened and she stood in the threshold, hip-shot, arms crossed over her ribs, one shoulder leaning against the door frame. “You’ve got just enough time for a quick shower and a chin-scrape, love.”

“Mmmm-uuuuuh.” He played up his sleep-sodden state, overacting with cheerful gusto. “Uuuuuuh. Mary, ask Mummy to stall. ‘M tiiiired,” he whined, voice intentionally blurred with feigned sleep.

“Oh, yeah, right,” she scoffed, grinning. “In bed before ten, slept the clock around and then some.”

“Been busy,” he said, rolling over and looking pitifully up at her, blue eyes wide and limpid.

She laughed. “Up and at ‘em, Atom Ant.  Get your arse down there—John and Father can’t play host forever, you know. You promised Lestrade a case.”

Sherlock smiled to himself and said, “Enlist Mycroft.” Then he rose, all six-foot of him, with an extra two inches of bed-head hair making him taller still. He grabbed his beloved dressing robe, a gift from Mycroft and one of the few perfect presents he’d ever received, and then flapped his hands at Mary. “Go-go-go. Your child is waiting. Your husband needs you. Tell Mummy I’ll be down in a bit.” Then, as she headed down the stairs, he leaned over the rail and called down the stairwell, “Lamb and chutney sandwiches?”

“That, yeah—and egg salad because Mummy made eggs even if she didn’t hide baskets. And ham sammies because she says if you don’t have lamb you must have ham or it just isn’t Easter, so she got both…which appears to make sense to her, anyway.” She chuckled.

He could see a [little fat vase of daffodils](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4113oOuzR4L.jpg) on the hallway table in the foyer at the foot of the stairs.

“Just so long as I get a lamb and chutney,” he said, and sloped off to the shower, where he was grateful he’d been wise enough to sleep in late, as there were gobs of hot water and Mummy had come through with piles of fresh bath towels since the morning rush had occurred. When he went down he was dressed in what he thought of as “home” clothes—the trousers and shoes he’d wear in London, but wearing a soft, hooded grey sweatshirt marked with “U. Manchester,” that he’d bought back in his uni days to horrify Mummy and Father’s friends, who believed that the “red brick” universities existed only to meet the humble vocational needs of a “certain class.” He rattled down the stairs and toward the kitchen, noting a [majolica frog-shaped vase](http://p2.la-img.com/648/28827/11098380_1_l.jpg) full of daffodils in the sitting room. People were gathering in the kitchen, passing around plates and setting out bowls and platters.

He nipped smartly into “his” place at the table, just to the left of Mummy’s place at the head of the table—the end nearest the stove and fridge and counters. He grabbed a pitcher, poured himself a glass of water, and looked around brightly. “So. I’m starved…when can we start?”

Mummy gave him her exasperated, doting look, but shoved the platter of sliced lamb his way. “I ought to play Little Red Hen,” she said, “and starve you. Everyone else helped, you know—your guests are more use than you are.”

“All the more reason to keep them around, then,” he said, pretending not to smile. Mummy pretended back, eyes dancing, and swatted him with a tea towel.

Sherlock was happy. A small [cut crystal vase](http://p2.la-img.com/21/15755/5173854_1_l.jpg) of daffs shone in the center of the table, the one “fancy” element of Mummy’s comfortable domain. Mary and John chattered, the baby sang her la-la-ba-aaaaah song, and Lestrade munched away quietly, holding some sensible conversation with Father about the problems facing the Met in regards to domestic terrorism and the British Muslim population. Only toward the end of the meal did he notice Mycroft wasn’t there—and his first thought was dry amazement that his own contentment hadn’t alerted him.

“Where’s Eeyore?” he asked, casually, not looking at Lestrade directly—but watching his face in a little round mirror in a brass frame that hung over the sideboard.

“Went out for a walk,” Lestrade said, voice washed pale and empty of inflection.

“When’s he coming back?” Sherlock felt the hair on his neck rise, prickling.

Lestrade shrugged. “Don’t ask me,” he growled, defensive annoyance rising in his voice. He kept his eyes glued to the bowl of egg mayonnaise—daffodil yellow with a bolder sprinkling of grated yolk as garnish.

“Mmmm.” Sherlock looked away then. “Nice flowers,” he said to Mummy. “I like the vases.”

“Really?” she said. “I thought you hated them—they were always Mikey’s favorites. You liked the [peacock Art Nouveau](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/1e/90/a5/1e90a585be6ef3a98263daaaa93a0e2a.jpg), as I recall.”

“Playing favorites,” he said, pouting.

“Them as brings the flowers gets to pick the vases,” she said, dry and ironic. “Mikey must have brought the daffs in—found them in a pot in the kitchen sink, and the vases washed and dried and ready on the counter.” She looked at him suspiciously. “What’s wrong, Boy?” she said, as she’d once said to a child who loved Peter Pan and pirates and Wendy calling Peter “Boy.” “You didn’t come down and get on Mikey’s nerves, did you?”

He shook his head, trying to put the picture together. They’d gone out together and come back together—Mycroft and Lestrade. And they’d been happy—he’d have sworn it….

“When?” he asked.

“When what?”

“When did you find the daffs?”

She looked at him, and scowled. “You’re not detecting here, Sherlock! I won’t have it.”

“I’m not detecting, I’m deducing,” he said, feeling suddenly frightened and off balance.

“There’s a difference?”

“Yes,” he snapped, “Detecting involves a crime. This isn’t a crime.” It might be a crying shame, though, he thought, grimly. “When did you find the daffs, Mummy?”

She sighed, but answered. “All right, all right, let me think. After I got tea—there was already hot water in the kettle and that nice Inspector poured it for me. I drank it in the sitting room. After I played with the baby, too—Mary and I took her outside and wheeled her around in the pushchair for a bit. Before I started lunch, though, of course, and I felt a complete ninny for not knowing they were there because the whole house smelled of them. Even your father would have figured it out if he hadn’t gone in to town for groceries.” She hummed, and said, “After ten. I can’t say more than that for certain, but after ten.

Sherlock nodded, absently, ticking time off in his mind. Mycroft and Lestrade had come in after eight, he thought, remembering the light in the garden and the angle of it streaming through the curtains. After eight, gone by ten. An hour at least for Mummy to drink tea and go out with Mary and the baby. Gone by nine, then, at least, and quite possibly earlier.

“You say the water in the kettle was hot?”

“Scorching. Took the Inspector next to no time to make me a nice cuppa.”

“Was Lestrade—“

“What?”

He wanted to ask if Lestrade had seemed normal, but Mummy didn’t know Lestrade well—and wouldn’t know “normal” if it rose up and bit her on the nose. He shook his head, putting together a timeline in his mind.

Hardly any time for anything to happen, he thought, sullenly. God, couldn’t he leave Mycroft alone on his own while he had a bit of a lie-in without him bolloxing everything up? What could have happened in that little time—a half-hour in which he’d have had to find the pot for the daffs, then go down to Mummy’s shelves of vases and spare pots and china in the cellar, then up again to wash off the dust and wipe the vases dry and lay them out so he could arrange the flowers…

He flinched, then, recalling how easily Mycroft could be hurt. He forgot, sometimes, and chose to forget others. Life spent worrying about hurting Mycroft would leave him so little room for more pleasant things, after all. But anything could happen in a half an hour.

He studied Lestrade, this time with his senses on alert.

Uneasy, he thought. Tense. It could just be being in a strange house, guest of people he didn’t know well. It wasn’t that, though—he spoke easily enough to Father, and he knew Mary and John well enough—and Sherlock quite well.

He hadn’t asked about the case.

Mary—Mary had mentioned it. Lestrade hadn’t, as though it had slipped his mind, or as though whatever else happened he didn’t want to get caught up In one of Sherlock’s projects.

The older man had eaten well—but absently, and Lestrade was a man who liked his mealtimes. He’d been serious, too—and Lestrade was a man who dealt with stress and social discomfort through laughter and charm, where someone like Mycroft managed it through perfect manners and reserve. Lestrade hadn’t told a joke, or slipped a pun into his conversation, or appeared to flirt with Mummy and Mary, grinning and making them blush.

Sherlock stood. “I’m going for a walk,” he said.

Everyone looked up. Mummy said, “A bit of help would be—“

“I’m going for a walk,” Sherlock said again. “Father, I’m borrowing your boots.” He walked away, ignoring the uneasy silence he left behind.

He trotted up the stairs and went to Mummy and Father’s room. He found Father’s walking boots in the bottom of a plastic organizer box. He kicked off his own shoes, stood and stole a spare pair of heavy socks from Father’s sock drawer to add extra padding and avoid blisters, then sat on the floor again, lacing on the heavy boots.

John came and hovered in the door. “What’s up, eh? Trouble?”

Sherlock glowered at him, tugged the laces to check they were secure, and stood. He brushed past John, not speaking.

“I can come with you,” John said, voice blending worry and hope. “Like to, to tell the truth. Going a bit stir crazy with the women and the baby and too much good food.”

“You won’t be able to keep up.”

John scuttled down the stairs behind Sherlock. He scoffed. “I can keep up,” he said. “You’re the one never managed training camp.”

Sherlock huffed. “I know the woods.”

“I have survival training.”

“I’m in a rush.”

“I’ll hurry,” John growled, at this point dead set on joining Sherlock. “I’m worried about you.”

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Sherlock snapped, then went silent.

“Ah. Something wrong then after all?”

“Just shut up and find a coat and a decent pair of walking shoes,” Sherlock said. “And don’t take too long—I’ll meet you in the garden.”

As it was, he didn’t have to wait. John was ready in less time than it took Sherlock to realize all his Dunhills and his lighter were gone and his jacket pockets empty.

 

“Where are we going?” John asked, stepping easily over a downed tree branch. The wood was old, with little understory, and the forest floor was a soft carpet of green and brown—moss and ferns and tender yellow-green plants of all sorts. It was easy walking—nothing like second-growth forests where the underlying shrubs still fought valiantly for the light.

Sherlock didn’t answer. He was cutting across the woodland, taking the shortest route to Mycroft’s daffodil dell. He’d run the path a hundred times in his youth—the first time fleeing from the dell, where he’d followed Mycroft, terrified he’d give himself away and get caught. He’d sensed even then that Mycroft wouldn’t welcome his intrusion to the place.

His brother’s face had been lit, he remembered—as though the gold and light of the daffodils had lit a similar light in Mycroft. Then he’d turned, slowly, arms out, as though embracing all the dell, and Sherlock had panicked, sure he’d be seen, and had taken the most direct route toward home—the most direct and the one that provided the most cover.

He’d gone often—sometimes to spy on Mycroft, though he had to admit Mycroft had seldom done anything of interest in the dell. Year after year he’d picked daffodils and brought them back for Mummy’s vases. He’d always been ambiguous about where he’d found the flowers, usually sticking to a bland, “Oh, I found them out walking.” Sometimes he brought a book, and settled down in a more or less empty patch among the blossoms. Once, to Sherlock’s barely contained glee, he’d intoned all of Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” his voice fruity and all BBC Received Pronunciation—the start of the posh delivery that was his hallmark now. Plummy and drawling and superior…

“God,” John said, as they reached the dell. “God. It’s—God. It’s gorgeous.”

It was gorgeous—and empty. Mycroft wasn’t there.

“You’ve never seen it,” Sherlock snapped, and turned frantically, hands carding through curls, nails scraping his scalp, trying to think where Mycroft would be if he wasn’t here among the golden trumpets and sunshine.

“What do you mean, I haven’t seen it?” John said, stunned and laughing. “My God, Sherlock, it’s amazing. Of course I’ve seen it! Can we show Mary before we go? She’d love it.”

Sherlock rounded on him, fierce and desperate. “You haven’t seen it. I didn’t take you here. You don’t know about it. Now shut _up_ , John. Just shut up. I don’t know where he’s gone, and it’s important.”

John frowned, then. “What? Where who’s gone?”

“Mycroft,” Sherlock growled.

John was silent, then. He stood looking blankly around the dell—looking at Mycroft’s golden daffodils. Looking at the lack of Mycroft. Looking at Sherlock—Sherlock crawling out of his own skin. At last he said, in his “I am an officer and a doctor” voice. “What’s wrong, Sherlock? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock snapped back. “I don’t know—they were happy—this morning, coming in. They were happy. Mycroft and Lestrade. It was all sunshine and daffodils and Mycroft looked up at me and he smiled, and something went wrong before Mummy woke up, and Mycroft left and Lestrade’s all stress and silence and I don’t know. I can’t deduce it.”

John took a deep breath. “Try again, sunshine. In order. When did you see Mycroft and Lestrade come in?”

“This morning, I woke up and had to use the loo. I came back and they were coming in from a walk, and I was happy, because I’d hoped they’d go out this morning if I left them alone.”

John cocked his head. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why? Why did you want them to walk? Why did you hope they would? What is this about, Sherlock?”

“Budgies.”

“What?”

“Mycroft thinks normal people are like goldfish, but he needs someone. Someone smarter than a goldfish. And Lestrade’s a good budgie.”

John blinked and sighed his “OMG, here we go again,” sigh—the one he’d developed over years around Sherlock. “So, from the top—you called Lestrade down here just to give Mycroft a pet?”

“A friend.”

“He’s an adult, Sherlock—they both are,” John said, exasperated. “They can work out their own friendships.”

“Not in London,” Sherlock growled. “London’s time and pressure and schedules and habits and routines—for Lestrade, some. For Mycroft? Totally. It’s all cast in stone. Nothing changes.”

“And…”

“And he likes Lestrade,” Sherlock said, as though stating the obvious.

John paused, prepared to object—then stopped, and thought, and said, “Yeah, OK, I can see it—Mycroft works with him, trusts him. Mycroft doesn’t work with anyone, doesn’t trust anyone. If he works and trusts Greg, then he likes him. Case proven, if you can make your brains think in Holmes-style corkscrews.” When Sherlock shot him the “D’oh—it’s obvious” glare, he rolled his eyes. “All right, we’re on the same page at least. And whatever happened you thought he might come here.”

“Hoped,” Sherlock said, voice grim. “He goes here when he’s happy.”

“And if he’s not here, he’s not happy?”

“Not that simple. Daffodils only bloom a few weeks a year,” Sherlock said, letting John deduce the obvious fact that even Mycroft couldn’t restrict happiness to the narrow window of daffodil time. “But it widens the options.”

“Let’s try it the other way,” John said. “Where would he go if he weren’t happy?”

Sherlock looked at him. And looked at him. Then he gave a shout of triumph, grabbed John’s head, and planted a campy kiss on the top of his head. “I will say it again—you are an excellent conductor of light!” Then he spun, and walked away from the edge of the dell, slowly moving from a walk to a steady, controlled trot, heading inward and upward through the greening wood.

 

John fought to keep up. He was in good shape, and worked at it—but Sherlock’s legs were long, and he knew where he was going. John didn’t. He huffed a bit, eyes fixed on the forest floor looking for roots and downed branches and tangles of vine and weed that might bring him down. Just as he thought he could go no farther Sherlock said, “Shhh. Stop—look.”

Panting, John leaned on a nearby tree, his butt braced against crevassed, pleated bark. “Where?”

Sherlock jutted his chin to point. “We’re downwind.”

John couldn’t see it at first—then he saw a flicker of motion. “What?”

“Deer,” Sherlock said. “Red deer.”

“How can you tell?” John asked, voice still low.

Sherlock gave him an evil glare. “Oh, do catch up. It’s not hat hard.” When John looked not in the least enlightened he whispered, “Much too large to be roe deer. Can’t be sure it’s not fallow—we don’t have a clear view yet. But we can see the flanks—no spotting. Chestnut brown—greyish brown winter coat, giving way to patches of bright chestnut as they shed.”

“Ah,” John murmured. “Obvious. Anyone could have spotted it.”

Sherlock didn’t respond—but he didn’t respond in exactly the silent indifference that was as good as shouting “exactly, you moron.” He kept his eyes on the motion in the trees beyond.

They came mincing out of the tangled wood. Two stags… even John, a city boy at heart, knew that roe deer and fallow deer had male bucks, but male red deer were called stags.

He wanted to ask what was wrong with their antlers. They were [plump and stubby and covered with dense, napped material](http://www.countrysportsandcountrylife.com/sections/stalking/RedDeer_files/redweb3.jpg), as though they had some horrifying fungal infection. One appeared to have been damaged, and a trail of dark blood trickled down the supporting branch. What was it called? He’d heard friends in the army talk hunting, the language as specific and arcane as any other jargon. Right—the main beam. The blood had run, dripped, pooled at the knobby base where the flesh appeared swollen and sore.

There were two… They paced along in silent companionship.

Weren’t stags supposed to fight? Race at each other and lock horns? Collect harems? Or, no—that was autumn, wasn’t it? This was spring, lambing season. Or fawns, anyway. The males would be on their own, wouldn’t they?

One stag leaned down and lipped idly at a clump of shade-bleached grass. The other sighed softly and laid his jaw on the back of the first. He scratched himself on his friend’s spine. For all the world they were like [two old friends at a pub](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Red_deer_stags.jpg), easy with each other, passing the time. John wanted to ask them what they thought the odds were for Manchester United in the next game and buy them a pint.

At the thought a laugh caught him—a sharp, happy bark of amusement. It rang in the open wood, and the two stags leapt, panicked, collided against each other, and ran, each in a separate direction, bounding in vast, arching bounds, [crashing away](http://www.sciencephoto.com/image/389357/large/Z9520221-Red_deer_herd-SPL.jpg). And then they were gone.

John laughed again, rueful this time. “Guess I scared them.”

Sherlock gave him a sarky look, and said, “Guess you did.” Then he sighed, and moved out, heading up the flank of low rise, heading for a stone outcrop at the top. “Shhhh,” he said. “Quiet, now. Don’t scare _this_ one.”

The crept through the woods, then slid silent along a route up the stone that Sherlock seemed to know well. As they reached the crest, Sherlock dropped down and crept on his belly until he could peer over the stone, half hidden by a little clump of shrubs. “There,” he breathed, relief evident even in the whisper. “See?”

John crept up beside him and lay close, peering through the foliage and plant-trunks. Beyond he could see a fold of rock—a second, smaller ridge of stone. One portion formed a natural throne. Mycroft sat there, folded tightly inward, arms around his knees, eyes looking out unfocused into some unknown beyond.

It was quiet up there, John thought, uneasily. He missed the city—the hum of traffic, the murmur of a thousand voices all pitched to be heard. The bang of lorry doors swung wide for deliveries. The rattle of tires over sewer gratings. Sirens in the distance—he knew them. The police sirens, the ambulances, the fire trucks. Church bells, school klaxons marking out periods. A city was never silent the way these woods were, with nothing to hear but wind in the leaves of the bushes and somewhere a bird on a drunken spree singing the same two phrases of notes over and over and over, like someone who’d forgot all but the critical words of “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” but who sang those again, and again, and again.

Mycroft dug in his pocket and pulled something out. A second later he’d ducked his head low, his hands poised to shelter a flame.

Sherlock swore.

“What?” John asked.

“Nothing,” Sherlock said. Then, “Mycroft doesn’t smoke.”

“That’s funny,” John muttered. “I’d have sworn he’d just lit up.”

“Only when he’s upset,” Sherlock said, and wouldn’t say anything more.

The afternoon was wearing on. The trees cast long shadows across the castle of stone—across Mycroft, who seemed to shiver and pull into himself. A crow flew over, then a murmuration of starlings, the whole flock roiling and spinning like a storm on a weather map as they crossed the sky.

“Are we going to talk to him?” John whispered.

Sherlock shook his head.

John thought his friend would have cried, if he’d been anyone but Sherlock. There was something hurt and helpless there—and John didn’t know what.

At last Sherlock sighed and shimmied back down the slope, John creeping along with him. They moved downhill, and into the deeper woods.

“What’s wrong with him?” John asked.

Sherlock shrugged, then said, “Something hurt him.”

“What?”

Another shrug. Then, “It could be anything. Something Lestrade said. Something he did. Something Mycroft thought. Anything.” His lips tightened, and he said, fiercely, “I thought it had worked,” and strode away, fuming.

“What were you trying to do?” John shouted after him.

Sherlock didn’t answer.

John sighed, then called, “You go on ahead. I need to get a pebble out of my shoe. I’ll catch up with you.”

Sherlock didn’t answer, just kept walking, his thin back straight and his steps the easy pace of a boy who’d grown up running through this woodland as if it was his own Neverland.

When he was out of sight John marked his path, then fished his mobile phone out of his pocket, praying he’d see bars this far out in the country. He sighed in relief when he did. He dialed Mary.

“Hey-hey,” she said, amiably, when she picked up. “You two have been out long enough. Mummy’s beginning to think she’s lost her boys and been left with two strangers and a baby.”

“Long walk,” John said. “Long story. Found Mycroft. Look, tell me something—how’s Greg?”

She hummed, then said, “Antsy. Mad Sherlock’s ditched out again. Inventing reasons to just drive back to London.”

“Anything else?”

She made a little non-committal noise. “Maybe? Maybe not? I don’t know, John. Pretty hard to pick out refinements on why he’s broody. He’s got plenty of obvious cause. Why?”

“Sherlock apparently thought he was matchmaking,” John said, grimly. “Finding Mycroft a friend. Setting him and Lestrade up to be besties or something. The thing is, he’s in a swivet. He thinks—he thought it was all golden this morning when they came in. Apparently he woke up early and saw them come back from a walk and he thought it looked like something…solid? Settled? And now he thinks it’s not. I’m trying to work out if he’s nuts.” He stopped, and revised, saying, “Well—more nuts than usual, I mean. You know.”

She said, cautiously, “Friends or lovers, John?”

“What?”

“Did Sherlock think he was setting them up to be friends or lovers?”

John scowled, then said, grimly, “Mary, this is Sherlock. I’d have said matchmaking Mycroft with a friend was more sentiment than Sherlock would admit to. Lovers? For Mycroft? When I’m not entirely sure how comfortable he is that his brother’s gay in the first place?”

“Mmmmmm,” Mary said. He could imagine her face—the distant stare, the Mona Lisa smile—almost not there, glimmering in the corners of her mouth and the warmth in her eyes.

“What?”

She was silent, then said, “Remember the date _before_ the date when we first shagged, sweetie?”

“What?”

“John, _think._ You know—the time we got in the fight and you went to Bath for the weekend just because you were angry with me and you actually did do the baths? Remember? And I took Janine on a pub crawl and swore off men forever?”

John chuffed, and made a husbandly “I remember” noise. Then he said, “Yeah, but what’s it got to do with anything?”

She sighed. “Is Sherlock likely to be wrong about them getting along when he woke up?”

“No.”

“Yeah. Well, then,” she said, as though that explained everything.

“Come on,” he grumbled. “Unpack it a bit, Mare. You and Sherlock—you expect people to work it out with no clues.”

She sighed, and said, “John, would Sherlock recognize the difference between beginning to fall in love and beginning to be best friends? Reliably?”

“No.” He had to smile. That uncertainty still made his life interesting…and his best friendship occasionally a bit complicated.

“Yeah,” she said, voice fond and laughing. “So—they were happy in the morning and before the hour was up Mycroft went running off to sulk in the woods and Lestrade turned into a riddle wrapped in an enigma, yeah? If that was you and me, what would it mean?”

John closed his eyes. “No. Lestrade’s not gay.”

“You sure? Not even a bit? Not around the edges? Not even a little?”

“Mary, that’s not something…”

“Yeah. Men don’t talk about it. Admit it, John… You don’t know.”

“But…”

“Ask Sherlock,” she said, firmly. “He may not recognize whether they’re in love or not. But he’ll have figured out if Lestrade’s exclusively het or not years ago. And even if Lestrade is—it doesn’t mean Mycroft can’t have been a bit smitten, and hurt by it.”

John nodded, forgetting Mary couldn’t see him. “I suppose,” he said.

“Look,” she said, “You need to quit talking to me and come home. And I need to feed the baby. Just think about it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” John said, then, reluctantly but with an uneasy sense that he’d best say it, he added, “See if you can keep Lestrade around? I think maybe he’d better not go running back to London just yet, ok?”

When he hung up the light had changed. It was still hours to sunset, but the colors had darkened—deepened. He looked up through the lace of [little oak leaves](http://www.sbs.utexas.edu/bio406d/images/pics/fag/Quercus%20stellata%20youngleaves2.jpg)—the pale green of honeydew melon, and hardly bigger than his finger tip, their wavy margins fluttering in the breeze. The sky above was Virgin Mary blue, and deep, with breakers of cloud sweeping over the treetops.

The mad bird was still singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

“Are you ever coming?” Sherlock’s voice was exasperated.

John looked back down and met his friend’s eyes. “Is Lestrade straight?” he asked.

Sherlock frowned. “I don’t think he’s exclusively so.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be when he’s not practicing any particular leaning that I can see of late. But lack of evidence is not proof. I deduce he’s a midrange Kinsey.”

“Mmmmm. Would you know the difference between falling in love and becoming friends?”

Sherlock frowned harder than ever. “Why?”

“Because falling in love is scary as hell,” John said, and walked past Sherlock at a good speed, headed for home.

 

The stags had panicked, Sherlock thought in a mental roar like surf. They’d panicked, crashing away through the trees, long legs kicking out, eyes wide, mouths open as they ran. They’d been afraid.

He walked half-blind, headed for home out of years of habit, catching his landmarks out of the corner of his eye, as oblivious as a commuter heading over a route he’d driven for decades. In his mind’s eye he saw Mycroft on the stone throne, taking out the pick-pocketed pack of Dunhills and flicking the stolen lighter.

His brother, who smoked rarely, and most often when he was worried or unhappy—or afraid.

He could see them in his mind’s eye. Mycroft and Lestrade, moving like gentle stags, stags in springtime, their racks shed and the new antlers in velvet, so tender a knock from a branch or a scrape against a tree trunk could shed blood. They’d walked together so quietly, Mycroft with his arms full to the point of overflowing with daffodils, Lestrade moving beside him to open his gates and swing wide the door.

He thought of John—of leaning together in the hallway of Baker Street, laughing in the faint light.

_“Ok,” John had said, laughing. “That was ridiculous. That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”_

_“And you invaded Afghanistan.”_

_“That wasn’t just me.”_

Did he know the difference between becoming friends and falling in love?

No. No—over the years, over John and Mary and Molly and Janine, over the questions without answer, over the longing without form, over the satisfaction without categories, he had to say, no—no, he didn’t know the difference. Didn’t understand the difference. He loved.

Desire on any other pretext bewildered him…. And when there was love, in the end he had to say desire didn’t matter.

But even he understood that it was terrifying.

Two stags in a wood, and the sudden sound of danger…

When he reached home he saw Mary come walking out to them, her face as kind as summer and her smile welcoming—and he did what Sherlock Holmes never did, and pulled her and John close, and accepted the golden wealth of his friendly beloveds---his loving friends—who defied classification and overrode category.

“I wanted him to have this,” he said.

“Give it time,” Mary said. “Wait. See if they work it out.”

Mycroft came home, quiet and wind-blown—Mycroft, the eternally neat, the endlessly tidy, his forelock dangling and his cheeks pink from the wind. Sherlock, in the sitting room, saw his brother lean low over the celadon vase, breathing in the scent of daffodils. Then Mycroft looked up and met his eye.

“I’m afraid I knicked your cigarettes,” he said. “I’ll have Anthea bring you over a new box.”

Sherlock raised one hand in dismissal. “Never mind. I was thinking of quitting again anyway.”

“There are a couple left in the second pack. We could go out in the garden and enjoy them together.”

Sherlock nodded, rose, and went out. They leaned together on the gate.

“I saw you,” Mycroft said. “You’re not as discreet as you think you are.”

Sherlock huffed, annoyed, and reached for the cigarette his brother held out. “Hell.”

“Thank you for not intruding.”

Sherlock shrugged, accepted the lighter, and dragged. The smoke rose in a lazy, fluttering stream, headed into a purpling sky. He said nothing.

Mycroft put his hand out for the lighter.

“Not a chance, brother mine,” Sherlock said. “This I’m taking back.” He flicked the lighter and waited while Mycroft drew his own cigarette into life, then tucked the lighter in his pocket.

“I thought you were quitting.”

“Unlike some people I could mention, I perform experiments. And do field work. And attend the scenes of crimes. A lighter can prove useful.”

Mycroft scoffed—but fondly. “Ah, I see. A plausible cover story, at the very least.”

Sherlock nodded.

The night was coming alive—day and nighttime birds singing.

“There are the roe deer again,” Mycroft said.

Sherlock grunted agreement. “I saw two red deer stags today.”

“Not Sika?”

“No. No dapples.”

“Mmm.”

“John coughed and they ran off.”

“Well.” Mycroft shot him a mischievous glance. “John’s really quite terrifying to the uninitiated, after all.”

“He’s terrifying to the initiated, too,” Sherlock said, smugly. “He and Mary both.”

“Mmmmm. So they are.”

“I told John they might come back, though,” Sherlock said. “The stags. They run when you startle them…but once they’re sure they’re safe, they’ll come back.”

Mycroft shot him a baleful glance. “You’re attempting innuendo. I can tell—you’re even less coherent than usual.”

“Just—“ Sherlock sighed, and said, “You looked happy this morning. So did Lestrade. All right?”

Mycroft drew in smoke and appeared to savor it, rolling it in his mouth, testing it against his palate.

Behind them the door opened. Lestrade came out and stood, arms crossed. “Your mum’s made curry,” he said. “Proper English curry, with carrots and swedes and potatoes and leftover peas and mint.”

The two brothers turned and leaned their backs to the gate, looking at the inspector.

“How soon before we eat?” Mycroft asked. His voice was warm.

Lestrade made a grumbly noise. “No idea. She told me to tell you what it was, though.”

The two brothers exchanged glances.

“Mummy’s not stupid,” Sherlock pointed out. “And she does keep hoping.”

Mycroft sniffed, but didn’t deny it.

Lestrade cocked his head and frowned, listening.

“Bloody hell. What is that? Sounds like a pennywhistle in the hands of a drunk.” 

A [nightbird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INzqozVbYL8) sang in the nearby wood--a warbling, rolling song with repeats and trills and bubbling rills.

Mycroft gave a surprised chuff of laughter and drawled, “That, my dear Inspector Lestrade, is a nightingale.”

“Bloody hell,” Lestrade said again, shaking his head. “How’s a man supposed to sleep through that? It go on all night?”

“On occasion.”

“He did spend summers in the West Country,” Sherlock hissed.

Mycroft kicked his ankle and shot him an evil look. To Lestrade he said, “In spite of what popular music would have you believe, nightingales don’t live in London. There are no nightingales singing in Berkeley Square.”

Lestrade met Mycroft’s eye. “Yeah. Well. I probably ought to think of getting back to London tonight, then, yeah? If I want a good night’s sleep.”

“I can’t assure you of a good night’s sleep, Inspector. But I am headed back to London tonight—if you want a lift. My driver’s coming for me later.”

Lestrade’s face was still—all but a Mona Lisa smile that hid in the corners of his mouth and glimmered in his eyes. “Yeah? But I brought my own car down. How about I offer you the lift?”

Mycroft hummed, pensively. “I suppose it would save on petrol,” he said.

“Patriotic, that. Car pool and all. And I get good mileage.”

“I daresay you do,” Mycroft purred, and his eyes shone in the descending darkness.

Sherlock smiled to himself, and contemplated the beauty of daffodils and homemade curry with swedes in and the lack of nightingales in Berkely Square…

…And the ultimate and absolute lack of difference between lovers and friends.

**Author's Note:**

> The vases. I don't know. I can't even. Don't ask. All I know is that Mummy has vases (as my own Mother had/has vases) and she keeps them on shelves in the cellar and the boys had very strong opinions about them growing up, and there were Mikey's favorites and there were Sherlock's favorites, and Mikey liked the fancy celadon one and the majolica frog with its mouth all pink on the inside and the fancy cut glass. Sherlock liked the Rookwood Peacock vase.
> 
> The Holmes family or Mummy's family have to have some kind of connection to the US, as the cut glass and the Rookwood are both American manufacture.


End file.
